A Happy New Year to you, my dear Sneyd. It is so dark, I can hardly see
to write, and it has been pouring such torrents of rain, hail, and snow,
that I began to think, with John Langan, that the "old prophecies found
in a bog" were all accomplishing, and that Slievegaulry was beginning to
set out [Footnote: An old woman had, before Christmas, gone about the
neighbourhood saying that, on New Year's Day, Slievegaulry, a little
hill about five miles from Edgeworthstown, would come down with an
earthquake, and settle on the village, destroying everything.] on its
proposed journey. My mother has told you about these predictions, and
the horror they have spread through the country _entirely._ The old
woman who was the cause of the mischief is, I suppose, no bigger than a
midge's wing, as she has never been found, though diligent search has
been made for her. Almost all the people in this town sat up last night
to _receive_ the earthquake.
We have had the same physiognomical or character-telling _fishes_ that
you described to Honora. Captain Hercules Pakenham brought them from
Denmark, where a Frenchman was selling them very cheap. Those we saw
were pale green and bright purple. They are very curious: my father was
struck with them as much, or more, than any of the children; for there
are some wonders which strike in proportion to the knowledge, instead of
the ignorance, of the beholders. Is it a leaf? Is it galvanic? What is
it? I wish Henry would talk to Davy about it. The fish lay more quiet in
my father's hand than could have been expected; only curled up their
tails on my Aunt Mary's; tolerably quiet on my mother's; but they could
not lie still one second on William's, and went up his sleeve, which I
am told their German interpreters say is the worst sign they can give.
My father suggested that the different degrees of dryness or moisture in
the hands cause the emotions of these sensitive fish, but after _drying_
our best, no change was perceptible. I thought the pulse was the cause
of their motion, but this does not hold, because my pulse is slow, and
my father's very quick. It was ingenious to make them in the shape of
fish, because their motions exactly resemble the breathing, and panting,
and floundering, and tail-curling of fish; and I am sure I have tired
you with them, and you will be sick of these fish. [Footnote: It was
afterwards ascertained that these conjuring fish had been brought from
Japan by the Dutch, and were made of horn cut extremely thin. Their
movements were occasioned, as Mr. Edgeworth supposed, from the warm
moisture of the hand, but depended upon the manner in which they were
placed. If the middle of the fish was made to touch the warmest part of
the hand, it contracted, and set the head and tail in motion.]
_To_ MISS RUXTON.